Wall Street Journal

As Venezuela plunges deeper into humanitarian crisis, the broadcast and cable networks barely recognize its existence, while the print press, which during relatively tolerable times routinely celebrated the country's socialist government, is more reluctant than ever to use the S-word. Of six articles I found Friday afternoon about the horrid, deteriorating situation in that country, only one used the word — and that was only because it was about snap elections de facto dictator Nicolas Maduro has called for April.

Wednesday afternoon at NewsBusters, Kristine Marsh noted that the broadcast networks' morning news shows "ignored a bombshell report released overnight" by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). That report includes additional damning text messages between FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok while they were involved in investigating Hillary Clinton's private server and the Donald Trump presidential campaign's alleged connections with Russia. The media is now in a tug of war over the scope of the Page-Strzok text saying that "potus (President Obama) wants to know everything we're doing."

Partisans tend to read, watch and listen only, or mostly, to information and opinions that reinforce their beliefs. If information surfaces that counters those beliefs, it is usually disparaged, excused or ignored. That's human nature. Such is the case with the "memo" released last Friday by the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee. The four-page document alleges, in the words of a Wall Street Journal editorial: "the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath."

On Friday, the College of William & Mary announced that former FBI Director James Comey, a 1982 graduate, will "will teach a three-credit course on ethical leadership" beginning this fall. Establishment press coverage of Comey's assignment, coinciding with being named "an executive professor in education," has mostly avoided the myriad reasons why having him teach such a course is a horrible lapse in judgment by W&M.

A weaker than expected jobs report managed to capture the attention of the three broadcast networks evening newscasts. That was quite a switch.Those same news programs often underreported good economic news in the past year. ABC World News skipped reporting the jobs report four times in 2017.

Threats against Trump administration officials have become deadly serious. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt requested 24/7 security protection back in April and had to beef up his security detail again in October, because of the high number of threats against him and his family.

A Louisville Courier Journal item currently carried at USA Today by reporter Thomas Novelly seems to imply that Rand Paul deserved to be blindsided, tackled and to have possibly life-threatening serious injuries inflicted on him Friday afternoon. After all, the headline reads: "Rand Paul is not a perfect neighbor" — according to the developer of the gated community in which Paul and Rene Boucher, the alleged perpetrator, both live.

The unease among advertisers over falling National Football League TV ratings is starting to boil over. One of the league's major sponsors is considering pulling the plug on its NFL advertising next year, and, according to Business Insider's Mike Shields, other "brands are threatening to pull ads from NFL coverage if NBC keeps covering players' national-anthem protests." If those ad dollars go away, technological shifts may cause advertisers to decide not to return.

Yes, you are reading the headline correctly. On Thursday’s Deadline: White House, Wall Street Journal White House reporter Eli Stokols was very upset that President Trump called for the death penalty to be imposed on the terrorist who just killed eight people in New York City because – wait for it – Trump didn’t also call for the execution of the Las Vegas mass shooter. No one bothered to tell Eli that Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock already killed himself.

I am not nearly so coldhearted and unsympathetic toward the mainstream media as some of my conservative friends, such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Chris Plante and Ann Coulter. In fact, my heart goes out to them. As evidence of the same, if I had President Donald Trump's ear, I'd urge him to declare this coming Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, a day of remembrance and order that flags be flown at half-staff on all federal buildings.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal called on Thursday, October 26, for Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller to step down from his role in investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. “It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity to say that he lacks the 'critical distance' to conduct a credible probe of the bureau he ran for a dozen years,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “He could best serve the country by resigning to prevent further political turmoil over that conflict of interest.”

The mainstream media has recently gotten all excited over the discovery that the Russians purchased $100,000 worth of Facebook ads during the 2016 election season. Of course, almost any rational observer would realize that $100,000 is mere chump change in the grand scheme of things during a campaign in which many millions were spent on ads and commercials.

One person who made a very detailed analysis as to the absurdity of the Russians influencing the U.S. election via those Facebook ads is quite surprising considering his background. It is former 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign chief stragegist Mark Penn who in the October 15 Wall Street Journal mocked the notion of Russian influence via Facebook ads in You Can’t Buy the Presidency for $100,000:

The mission of the Media Research Center is to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish. The MRC is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the MRC are tax-deductible.

The Media Research Center participates in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).The MRC's CFC code is 42353.